Summertime

With living in the tropics for almost 2 years I had enough sunshine you'd say. But summertime in the Netherlands is just so different. I enjoy the times that I can sit in the back yard, in the sunshine, just cause the sun isn't that hot. I enjoy my times of going to the beach and being able to lay down on my towel and read a good novel. (and not being stared at cauze I'm white) I love my times of walking in the woods, being in nature. And I absolutely love walking barefeet.
So my aunt and causins introduced me to the barefoot trail in Friesland, one of the northern provinces of the Netherlands. It is a trail you walk barefeet..duhh.. walking it with shoes is no fun I say. If you know me a little then you can imagine how I looked like after walking the trail ;)

Mudface ;) I couldn't stay clean afcourse, the muddier the better ;) and ofcourse a 'sillyface' (very Indonesian :) )

My face says it all: I'm really enjoying this!

Me and my causin having a mudfight! Yay!

through the mud puddle, how fun ;)

Our feet

Then beginning of August I joined the Colorrun in Utrecht. Wow that was quite an experience hey. I love running and I love art/creativity. The colorrun combines those 2 in a 5k run with on each kilometer a group of people who trow colored powder at you. So you'll reach the finishline as a living painting. After the 1k they trew orange powder so I looked like an oempa loempa, only the giant version haha LOL :)
After the 2nd K blue, 3th green, and before the finish pink. Here some pix so you can see the results of this colorful happening yourself

Before the finishline

Finished

2 thumbs up 'Toppie' as we say in Dutch

Silly girls

Colorrunner

Back home in the back yard

always thumbs up hehe ;)

Being back in the Netherlands for a while gives the oppertunity to hang out with family and friends. Which I very much enjoy. So a week ago I had some time with my grandparents. My grandfather has a horse and carriage. My uncle and grandfather build the whole carriage entirely on their own! Amazing right! And because of that we (me and friends where I will tell you more about later) could have a day riding through the woods and enjoying Dutch nature and architecture. What a priviledge!

Having fun :)

My grandfather and causin

The sweetest horse in the whole world ;)

Like a "pro" haha but did not even ride a single centimeter LOL

Ok the sun is still shining so I will take some time to sit outside and finish my book.

A happy day to you!

I'm back

I'm back

Back online
Back in the Netherlands
Back to the "old me" or to the "new me" should I say 
Back on track


A lot happened since I left Jakarta last May, sick and in confusion, questioning myself: Where do I belong? Who am I? Lots of "Why's" and "How's". I was lost and fatigued. Like a butterfly with a broken wing, but I didn't see my wing was broken. But God touched me and He mend my broken wing.

It is impossible to write down everything.
So here some keywords to describe the last 4 weeks:

Resting, balance, waiting upon the Lord, fun & laughter, crying, confession, honesty, I am sorry, can you forgive me, healing, enjoying, nature, boundaries, discipline, overview, peace, becoming mature, taking my responsibilities & lots and lots of joy.

Pictures, more update and news will follow soon,

Stay blessed!

Live on the streets

Odor of sweat, unwashed bodies, urine, rats and cockroaches penetrates my nose as I make my way through small streets. I bend my knees while walking, so I will not hit my head against the low roofs that are sticking out. "Mister, mister" "bule" I hear around me. I simply greet and smile on the Indonesian way as I pass by "permissi". I ask" Me'em can you tell me where I can find the house of S.?" Ofcourse they know, they always know. "S. is not home" I turn around and see the biggest smile on the beautiful face of E. The 7 year old of S.. "Mama will be home soon" he says. So we wait in the front of this little house while the rats eat the rice leftovers from yesterday.

Me and my teammate decided to visit one of the girls because she asked us to. She told us she is sick. We saw her a couple of days ago when we took her and her son to the mall. Gave them a decent meal to eat. After that we received a phone call that she was sick. But obviously she feels better since she isn't home. It was quite a hassle to find them. The person who suppose to pick us up from the local market decided to not show up. But gave us vague instructions instead. Then we could not reach S. by phone. My teammate told me it always happens. I have a lot of growing in patient to do. Finally after more than an hour later we arrive at this little place. That left me speechless. I could not talk for the first hour. I cannot find any words in any language to describe how it looked like or how I felt. I could not believe my own eyes. I could not believe that 'my' dear S. and E. are living here.
As S. came home, she opened the door and excused herself for her house. A little room 2 by 3 meters with something on the ground that looks like mattress on the ground. I count 3 bottles of glue to sniff. No toilet, no running water, but rats and fleas instead. Walls so thin and zero privacy. Salt is thrown on the bed because Satan had entered her body, “that's why she's sick” her neighbors said.

I felt tears burning behind my eyes. And wanted to scream "Why is this world so unfair?" I feel all frustration from earlier that day, about waiting, not holding promises and time, melting away. From the inside I cry out “please show us how!”

We talk for a while and decide to wait for the next day to bring her to the doctor. So we can go to a clinic that provides medical care for people without identity cards and directly gives medicine too. We leave a little fresh water supply and food. As we found out she didn't eat since the last time we meet. I look at her and see how skinny she is. Her eyes lay deep in her skin. I can see all signs of malnutrition and see that live on the street is wearing her young body out. Her cough worries me to. And her living circumstances  don' help at all either.

In her eyes I see the fear to face the night. I know she will run into the arms of her boyfriend and that it will only be a matter of time when she'll tell us another child is on the way. Even though today we told her again she has a choice, there is hope and a future, there is a way out if she wants to. But she needs to be the one to choose that way. And I just pray with all that is within me, she will find the courage to step into the unknown. And starts walking down that road to discover that there are many more walking down that pathway called Hope...

Jakarta craziness

Let us dare to test God’s resources…

Let us ask Him to kindle in us and keep aflame that passion for the impossible

that shall make us delight in it with Him,

till the day when we shall see it transformed into a fact.

 

Stuck by these words I look back on my first week in Jakarta. I am sitting on the roof of my new home, enjoying the airflow in a this hot city.

It’s a new season! After coming back from Jakarta last Christmas I knew that Jakarta was my next step to take. A time of preparing, period of transition, wrapping up my live in Bandung and goodbyes followed. It was a weird realization that (almost) all of my belongings fit in 1 car. Realizing that I got a ‘real’ job for the first time in my life, making the switch from language learning into this new step of being involved in that where my heart is beating for.

You have to understand for me as a girl from a village in the Netherlands with ‘only’ 50.000 inhabitants, Jakarta feels pretty overwhelming. And eventhough in the last year and a half I got used to live in the 7 million city Bandung, still Bandung feels like a dot on the map in comparing to Jakarta.

Just to give you a picture of the daily craziness that is surrounding me. Here some facts:

Jakarta fits 51 times in the Netherlands, size wise.

Jakarta counts 13 million people, and the Netherlands 16,5 million…

You can do the math yourself ;)

This week walking down the streets I feel like an ant, it seems that the city is swallowing me, and its buildings are big giant ugly monsters that stare down at me. And in the midst of it rich and poor live and exist right next to each other. The difference between rich and poor here is so big, that I can’t wrap my head around it and I wonder how to bridge. I try but it’s too much. Being rich here means you live in more wealth than the queen of the Netherlands, and when your poor your daily income is barely enough to feed your family, not even 1 euro a day. Think about it what you can buy for 1 euro in Holland.. even though things here are cheaper. But take in into your context. And think you and your family had to eat from that, pay the rent for the house in the slum and send your children to school…

And where I am at a place where I can enjoy the luxury of AC, still my body has a hard time adjusting to the heat. In hot days it can rise above 40 degrees. Not that it’s all from the sun, but the pollution adds up. On some days you can see the smog hanging in the sky, like a fog over the city. Yuk, realizing that that is what I breath in every second of the day…

..But I am still able to pull myself back, but how many of these beautiful people are wandering down the streets, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, not knowing that they have the freedom to decide to not run into the arms of their abusive boyfriend. Working hard for a less than scratch and living in an inheritance of hopelessness.

Yet in all the giants I face, in my adjustments, in my work, in my personal struggles. Those giants who like to scream: WE ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEAT and in the midst of what I call ‘Jakarta craziness’: I have faith, I believe, and I know that it only takes the size of a mustard seed…

A Christmas to never forget

“What do you wanna drink?”  I’m looking in the dark brown eyes of a homeless teenager who just got of the local bus and earned some money with playing his guitar and singing songs – before I can answer the question he walks away and comes back with 2 bottles of Ice tea, one for me and one for my friend – “here”..and hands me the bottle. “So are you already longtime in Indonesia?” he asks. I stumble over my words as I’m so touched by the generosity of this teenager.

It’s a couple of days after Christmas and in the last few days I’ve learned more about Christmas then I did the last 26 years. I struggled so much with “getting in in Christmas mood” since its hot and again no white Christmas this year. No familiar family traditions or gatherings. But a tropical Christmas, like the one last year and the one in 2009. As I struggled with how does Christmas look like, and do I need to get in the Christmas mood, and what is that Christmas mood. And as I was surrendering my struggle and my stuck places to God. I felt that He was whispering about His gift to the world, and that Christmas is about giving and sharing. Now a couple of days later in the hot shining sun, in the strong smell of the local pasar, garbage and people who did not shower for some days, where the pollusion of a 20 million people city sticks to my skin I find the answer to what Christmas is about: giving and sharing with each other. Like God did, He gave His son to the world: the ultimate gift! My heart flows over in thankfulness and in the midst of this dark and yukkie place. I see a glimps of God’s love coming down.

And as we were sitting down all of a sudden lots of beautiful bright colored butterflies filled the sky and fluttering around us, yellow, blue, green, purple and orange. God is showing beauty in this dark place, remembering that there is Hope and new life for everyone. Remembering this quote: “ What the caterpillar thought it was the end of the world, the Creator calls a butterfly.”

His Love gifts, His Christmas gifts to me this year, so I can give away..

That evening we headed downtown to celebrate Christmas with a bunch of(ex) transgenders and people from different parts of the world. Lots of hearts, including mine, got touched by the love of God. I could truly celebrate Christmas this year, and felt so happy and richly blessed as we were jumping and singing Joy to the world and when we waved with our hands in the sky while singing glo-ria in excelsis deo. Singing with all my heart: Glory to God in the Highest!

And a Christmas to never forget!